Jamaica should stick with IMF — Byles

Co-chair of the Economic Oversight Committee Programme (EPOC) Richard Byles reckons that Jamaica should to stick the reforms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the programme ends in March 2017 to ensure that the Government is kept on track in reducing the country’s debt.

Jamaica currently has a four-year lending arrangement with the IMF which was approved in May 2013 as a part of the Economic Reform Programme (ERP). The agreement ends in March 2017, at which time the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is expected to be reduced from the current 126 per cent, to roughly 120 per cent of GDP. The ERP, however, has a set target to reduce the debt to GDP to 96 per cent in 2020, and to 60 per cent in 2025.

“In 2017, where will we be? We’ll probably be at about 120 per cent debt to GDP, which is far from where we should be. It should be 60 per cent debt to GDP at the maximum,” Byles stated during a press briefing on the 33rd communiqué of the private sector members of EPOC last Tuesday.

“So the fact that the four-year agreement with the IMF is done doesn’t mean that we can abandon the parameters that we have implemented and followed. We still have to follow them; it won’t be as intense, but we still have to be careful of the fiscal policy,” he continued.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Jamaica-should-stick-with-IMF—Byles_53015